2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
The Lord leads me to continue writing about the citations that reveal Him as Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our Righteousness. While it is not pleasant to go back over the many sins of the Jewish people before their being taken captive by the Babylonians, the Lord has assured me that it will reveal a great deal about His love and about the human heart that is important for us to know. So please bear with me, and take Him at His word. Our best interests are His priority.
You will remember that the prophet Jeremiah was commissioned for a very difficult assignment, that of conveying messages from God that the people didn’t want to hear. JER 3:8-9a is just such a message. “Judah saw that I [God] divorced Israel and sent her away because she had turned from Me and had become a prostitute. But Judah, Israel’s unfaithful sister, was not afraid. She too became a prostitute and was not at all ashamed.” The message referred to the fact that the northern kingdom of Israel had been captured by the Assyrians in 722 BC and held captive for the ensuing 160 years. Up until the last 70 years of that time, the southern kingdom had a chance to avoid this fate had she been willing to learn a lesson about righteousness from this. Sadly, she did not, and thus in 586 BC, she was taken captive by the Babylonians during those last 70 years. It was Jehovah Tsidkenu, Who was backed into a corner by her sinfulness. No loving parent takes pleasure in having to punish an unruly child. Jehovah Tsidkenu is surely a loving Parent.
Jehovah Tsidkenu’s angst at this sinfulness can be seen in JER 17: 9-10. “Who can understand the human heart? There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed. I, the Lord, search the minds and test the hearts of men. I treat each one according to the way he lives, according to what he does.” This is a very interesting citation, because it appears that God is expressing emotions here that humans sometimes express. By referring to the human heart as “too sick to be healed,” God is venting His frustration. I do not believe that He really believes all human hearts can’t be healed, although He certainly knows some of them can’t be. If we examine our own reactions to frustration that we feel, we know there have been times when we vented and felt compelled to remind the source of our frustration of our fairness. That is what I believe God is doing here. In reality, there is plenty of Scriptural evidence that God has not given up on healing human hearts (both physically and spiritually), nor does He ever really need to restate His righteousness to those Who know Him well. It is those who do not know Him well that remain a gnarly problem which brings Him frustration. We must ask: How well do each of us know God and His will for us?
Careful inspection of the ancient practice of Judaism reveals emphasis on ritual to the detriment of the heart. There is a passage in HE 10 which really allows us to know what is at heart of this problem from God’s point of view. HE 10: 1-4, “The Jewish Law is not a full and faithful model of the real things; it is only a faint outline of the good things to come. The same sacrifices are offered forever, year after year. How can the Law, then, by means of these sacrifices make perfect the people who come to God? If the people worshipping God had really been purified from their sins, they would not feel guilty of sin any more, and all sacrifices would stop. As it is, however, the sacrifices serve year after year to remind people of their sins. For the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sins.” Traditional Jews (rather than completed ones-Jewish believers in Christ) do not see events of the OT as foreshadowing those of the NT. That is because they reject the NT totally, thus also rejecting Christ as their personal Savior. This is the sad condition which RO 11 has described as the veil placed before their eyes by God. If these Jews accepted the teachings found in the NT, they would understand not only this principle, but would also know that Christ’s death on the cross and faith in Him are the only way to salvation. They would understand the difference between the Law and grace too. Because of their rejection of these NT principles, the Jews of today continue to prepare for the erection of a third Temple on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the most disputed 35 acres of real estate in the world. Their plan is to reinstate animal sacrifices. If we have faith in the Scriptures, particularly the book of Revelation, God has revealed that despite the presence of the El Asqa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, this will actually happen. It is for God to know exactly how.
Left as described, the path that the Lord is taking us on would leave us depressed and sorrowful. However, the story of Jehovah Tsidkenu is not finished. The greater view of His love for us will be seen when we put together what we have already discussed in these 5 messages about Him as “the Lord our Righteousness” with what He leads me to take up in the remaining messages in this part of our Who is God series. Let me close today’s message with PS 27: 14, “Trust in the Lord. Have faith, do not despair. Trust in the Lord.”
PRAYER: O Lord, even when we personally are not sinning at the moment, You lead us to examine the stories of people who did sin in the Scriptures. This is never to throw us into depression or make us angry. Instead, it is to teach us about both Your willingness to punish sin and the deep love and compassion You show us. If we were never to learn these often painful lessons, we would not be motivated to remain faithful in the face of all the trials and temptations of our lives in an often cruel and evil world. When we learn Your lessons well, we understand that it is not Your will that we should be legalistic, becoming so enraptured with ritual that it clouds what You really want us to understand. The nature and extent of Your grace extended to us is crucial for us to understand. You do not want us to become automatons, but instead, Your will is that we should be able to use the free agency that You gave us combined with the discernment we are given by the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures to make righteous choices. When we do this, we can freely appreciate the depth of Your sacrifice in the work of the cross, and it will sufficiently motivate us to make the choices necessary to further our sanctification and Your work. We come before You in humility today to offer You our adoration, worship, trust, obedience, loyalty, determination to be righteous, praise, and thanksgiving. In Christ’s holy name, amen.
Now that we have seen some of the sinfulness of mankind, we can begin looking at how Jehovah Tsidkenu deals with it, beginning with tomorrow’s message. There is no question that God must take a decisive stand on sinning, and that it must have negative consequences. But Jehovah Tsidkenu is not ever unfair, cruel, or wholly destructive in the way that He deals with mankind as a whole. When we are faithful, we can take comfort in knowing this and feel real joy at the love He aches to offer us. We were created in God’s image. While we do not have His sovereignty, consistent goodness, perception, or His supernatural abilities, we can know that the one and only God has the same feelings that we often do. This was important enough to Him that He sent His Son to be incarnate to prepare Him to be able to plead for us in intercession in heaven [HE 4: 15 & 7: 25]. That, Dear Ones, is the quintessential manifestation of His love for each of us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn